Ambition #1 for 2008: Developing Roget’s 3D ontology

The other day I was walking our dog in the second Weteringplantsoen, the small park close to where I live in Amsterdam. Probably due to my reflective mindset at Christmas time, I thought back twenty five years ago, just a month before my mom died. Somehow, I remembered that I had borrowed her Roget’s International Thesaurus, third edition, printed and published by Collins (London and Glasgow) in 1974. I’ve used the book ever since to improve the quality of my writing in English. Of course, nowadays I use thesauruses online but as it is, I like to use old fashion books as well. Anyway, I started to think about thesauruses and the probable complex work people put in them. Then I got an idea, combining different and apparently not associated information (thesauruses, ontologies, art, 3D, Borges’ Labyrinth and probably a lot more). And that is the origins of my first ambition for the next year: I am going to develop a 3D ontology based on Roget’s Thesaurus. And this is how I want to do it and how I imagine it (of course my process will be based on my book, using the Enneagraphical system). 

I will pick at random one word from Roget’s, put it in a Visio sheet (mind mapping tool) and put the synonyms around them. Then I will take each of the synonyms and do the same. My guess is that with around 250.000 words in the book – thus being an ending list – I will need a lot of 2D space. Meantime I will ask people if they have a clue of how to get this landscape of words (wordscape[1]) into a 3D setting as I assume that there will be overlap in certain words (with more than one homological meanings).Later on, my ambition will grow because I want to build a real 3D ontology and put it in a place for people to see.Even further in time, I would like the 3D ontology to grow in an emergent way by monitoring English written sites globally, measuring the frequency of use of words, ranking those words and developing a tool to automatically rearrange the 3D ontology. 

So, what’s the purpose? You tell me! There is something lingering in my brain that tells me to do this. It could give us visual insight in complexities (not just languages but also (social) networks and emergence, I guess). Perhaps you have some clues to help me out or even adopt parts of this project?

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[1] See the page ‘Credits’ for the credits of this word

Call For Questions about Behavioral Targeting (BT)

I came upon this request through my regular mail, kees.winkel@hu.nl. This one was posted by Steve Smith through MediaPost Publications and I hope I am permitted to pass the word on. Let me quote the second section of Steve’s post.

“Clearly there is a need for a meeting of the tribes around behavioral targeting, even if the topic is amorphous. We would like your help in nailing BT down as a locus of conversation that best serves our audience of media buyers, content providers and interactive marketers. As people fish around BT from all different angles and at varied levels of expertise, it is not always easy to identify the pressing questions an audience most wants asked and answered. And so, as I move into the final stages of programming OMMA Behavioral for Feb. 12, I turn to our readers for some input. We want to make this a more interactive conference by soliciting questions and key topics from our readers that we can pose to our panelists during the day and also use to shape the panel agendas with our moderators. The panels will be outlined at the show site in a matter of days, but here are the general subjects to which you can direct questions. Send them to me at popeyesmith@comcast.net and I will ask our moderators to include them on their agenda for their respective sessions”.

Steve’s blog is http://blogs.mediapost.com/behavioral_insider/?p=231. Go and have a look. It is interesting to me and I will follow this initiative.

Kees

Finally, Ticketmaster & Mobiqa Team up for Vast Mobile-Ticketing Deployment

An interseting post as a forerunner of sophistacated mobile and RFID technology:

Australia is the testing ground for a new service launched by Ticketmaster to enhance the security and efficiency of distributing tickets for events of all types.  A mobile-ticket option will be available that will allow event-goers to have their tickets sent directly to their cell phone or mobile device via SMS, MMS, or WAP.  The message they receive will have their ticket embedded in the form of a 2D barcode.  The user can then present their cell phone to be scanned by handheld scanners at the entrance to the event. Read more at Mova Media.

The evolution of social software

Today, I came across this link Life with alacrity. It is a well written and well ordered piece on the evolution of social software. Very interesting if you are into social software and want to place the current development in a historical context.

Stickis

Have you ever come to your room and looked at your monitor? How many stickis were, more or less randomly ordered, stuck on the screen? Quite a way of starting the day, huh?
A colleague of mine, Jelke de Boer, who’s experiencing the same problem, sent me a link with the answer, stickis.com.  This it what it does.

You download the little tool and start posting stickis on blogs, sites, you name it. Depending on your settings, the owner of a site can read and or delete the little virtual yellow sticky paper. Otherwise, if you set the sitcki to be public, everyone can read your little post. You may add a link, a picture, viseo, sound, whatever. I think it is ingenious. It could even change the entire blogosphere as it is.

All of a sudden we have a new and powerful little tool to relate (communicate). Just imagine. You go to the homepage of your favorite news paper and stick a comment. I bet the editor is not going to be that happy. After all, it is his paper, you should only read it. Right? And then, if you want to contribute your remark, there’s always the paper’s forum. Right?

Sure. But why? Professional journalists don’t like to be criticized in public and on the spot. Their job is serious. Mass amateurism will only lead to shallowness. It takes a professional to tell us what has happened and how we should interpret that news. Right?

If a site is public, in my opinion it is the reader’s right to respond, react, revolt. Informing others almost always leads to reaction. Action – reaction. Fair enough. So now there’s this little tool that facilitates us to react and I think it’s great.

This could happen to you too

I was invited to the introduction party of a campaign called ‘It could happen to you too’, initiated and executed by the Dutch NGO called VVN, the organization promoting safe traffic in The Netherlands. This organisation is very active in prevention when it comes down to any kind of alleged problems one encounters when joining the crowded and often dangerous Dutch traffic.
Regularly VVN launches campaigns which aim at a ‘problems’, either instrumental or mental. ‘This could happen to you too’ fits in the latter category and deals with the grieve of the next of kin of traffic casualties.

The director of VVN announced that this campaign is viral. So, what does it do and what do you do? Well, first of all, you will have to find the URL. I guess that will be communicated through the press and in print. Then you can click on the tab that says ‘video’s’. In those videos we see a relative talking about what he/she feels and what actually happened. These films are well made, I’d say overly well. They are very human. Nothing wrong yet. All attendants were quite when exposed to these films. A propos, there was a singer. She sangs sad songs that enhanced the tear-picking atmosphere.

Last year I had a student who worked on an other viral campaign for VVN. Although this campaign was really successful, the organization decided not to continue due to whatever kind of internal ramble. The campaign was called”‘Sorry gesture’ and aimed at (younger) people who would have a gesture for near accidents and incidents in traffic. The pre-run of the campaign was so viral that, within a few days, close to 25000 people voted for their favorite gesture. So what does VVN do now? They kindly ask us to download one of those dramatic (and in my experience ever lasting) films and mail them to a friend. That’s basically it.

Please tell me why? Why should I do this? What behavior should I adopt? Will sending you a film about somebody you and I don’t know help us become safer traffic partners? I have no clue what VVN wants us to do. Sorry!

If you read Dutch, check out their web site

Social network penetration a PDF

I use this PDF when lecturing about social networks and modern marketing approaches. You are free to use it as well or comment on it. I only ask you to send me a quick email.
The slide show is about how fast a marketer can penetrate into a network by only addressing 2% of the nodes, the so called hubs (see posting ‘Brand to community by using hubs in social networks). The graphs about the penetration were done by a researcher of the Helsinki University of Technology, a couple of years ago. I’m sorry to say that I forgot his name. The experiment was a laboratory set up, using 150 nodes (as seems to be a key amount of notes in a SN). I’m hoping to prove that this is right in my research about mentality approach which will start early January 2008. Enjoy. Social Networks 

The next big thing: free mobile service

An old acquaintance of mine, Marko Ahtisaari, is involved in Blyk, the new mobile operator in the UK, providing free 43 minutes talk and 217 text messages. This is a unique new approach. Branding is the key word. Check it out at Marko’s blog  and also read the Economist’s article The Next Big Thing. Blyk is really something to follow.

Vision Mission Compassion, the book and the bookosphere

On October 18 2007, my book Vision, Mission, Compassion was presented at my faculty in Utrecht. Since then, we, the triad – Luuk van Leeuwen, Kees Winkel and Hans Dijkstra – of ‘making the book possible, have received pretty nice reviews. Here is a brief introduction. In the near future, I may add  text and more pictures. Please let me know what you think of it. If you want to purchase a copy, go to van Gorcum, Management Boek or Bol.com.

The book, 120 pages in English, is published by Royal van Gorcum, Assen, The Netherlands.

Credo of Communicative Strategy

 The current conception of Vision, mission and communication focuses on the strategic (and commercial) targets of an organization. People are seen as assets, tools to realize these targets. For that purpose rules, regulations, norms and measurements are developed as a framework in which people in the organization must act accordingly. This leads to confusion, tiredness and non-interest and in some cases even rebellion.But people really matter in organizations. People are the organization. Each individual forms his own organization. Communicative Strategy focuses on people and their organizations by offering a method to develop and implement Vision through strategy with all concerned, by all concerned and for all concerned. This is compassion. Communicative Strategy is about Vision, Mission and Compassion by asking three key questions: what are the possibilities, what is the drive and what is the foundation? The answers are the basis for developing the Vision – the reason to be –, the Mission – the task – and the Compassion, the Participation Process. In the future, organizations will regard targets as a result of a shared Vision (Visio), thus building strong relationships based on possibilities, drive and foundation.Communicative Strategy prepares people and their organization for the future. 

About Compassion[i] 

Often, people see pity as a synonym for compassion. Pity is sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy[ii]. Pity is in fact the core virtue in the morale of ‘togetherness’. The core in this is that people want to bridge distances in sensitivity between those who are close to us. Pity means the act or capacity for sharing the painful feelings of another. It implies tender or sometimes slightly contemptuous sorrow for one in misery or distress Compassion is not that easy to grasp. In Taoism texts, compassion is not necessarily about feelings of pity but about benevolence (courtesy, goodwill) towards the other. The starting point is the inner notion of unity with the other; to encompass, to engage. The others use the word compassion as in engagement and participation. Encompassment and participation may sound less emotional (as in pity) and less important but understanding the meaning of compassion will make people open to understanding the importance of people in organisations; they are not assets to the organisation, they are the organisation[iii]. 

Communicative Strategy, an introduction

 The book is about Communicative Strategy. It is not about strategic communication although many believe that the two are more or less the same. Strategic communication is really applying communication as a tool for executing general policies in an organization. It is a continuous, well- balanced plan in steps answering questions like which target audience we will approach and how, what tools will we use and what not? This well-considered execution of policies and assets applies to internal and external communication as well as lobbying and crisis communication. In fact, strategic communication is corporate communication in all its aspects.Communicative Strategy, however, is the system of ideas that result in a collaborate awareness, appreciation, and positive intent with all who are related to an organization. Ideologies (political, religious), shifts in paradigms[iv], and reorganizations fit in this perspective as well as selling products and services. Communicative Strategy has a deep foundation. Part of it comes from combining ‘traditional’ communication, marketing, psychological and social (anthropological) theories. And part comes from new – or better renewed – insights, based on such formidable systems like the Enneagraphical system[v], Toffler’s Third wave scenario and the Belgian philosopher Arnold Cornelis who, in his ‘Feeling’s Logics’ offered us the system of the three layers of stability. Overall, Communicative Strategy is a method, based on these systems. Two words dominate Communicative Strategy; communication and strategy. The two are of the same strength and always come together; they form a unity. If you want to achieve anything strategy of course is a crucial tool to get things done. But what is strategy without communication? The answer: nothing! Everything you do has an impact on your environment. So everything you initiate will, one way or the other, change things. And that is exactly what you want when introducing a new idea, a product, service or new rule in your organization. Fundamentally, with everything we do, we change. In order to do so, we need two things: strategy and communication.  

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[i] The authors base these insights, amongst other on Patricia de Marelaere’s article ‘Het gelaat van de ander’ (the face of the other) in ‘De Groene’ (Dutch opinion magazine), issue #22, 1999. The article has not been quoted; the authors however want to express their appreciation of the contents and relevance of the article.[ii] Source: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/pity.[iii] Based on ‘Spheres’ by Peter Slotendijk, German philosopher.[iv]Par·a·digm:Etymology: Late Latin paradigma, from Greek paradeigma, from paradeiknynai to show side by side, from para- + deiknynai to show — more at DICTION1 : EXAMPLE, PATTERN; especially : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype2 : an example of a conjugation or declension showing a word in all its inflectional forms3 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind.Source: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/paradigm  [v] As studied by Hans Dijkstra over the last thirty-five years.

Branding to Community*

Do your profile in Hyves.nl (the Dutch look alike of MySpace and extremely popular among – mainly – teens with around 5 million users). Fill in all questions including the one about your favorite brands. When done, a universe of new friends unfolds. For instance, if you are into Vespa, you will find that over 12.000 other Hyves users share your passion. You can pick your choice to share your brand passion with those you choose. That’s nice!It is also nice for Vespa, the company. Vespa can target its dedicated followers to present them a suitable proposition and anchor the brand in the lives of teens.What more can a brand whish for than such a loyal community of fans? Hyves, as a prime brand, in this case facilitates the relationship between a brand and the brand user(s). And exactly that seems to be an emerging role certain brands appropriate; facilitation of relationships between brands and brand users in social media. Such a facilitating brand must bear certain requirements in mind, specifically those of trust and transparency. The Hyves user knows that personal data appear in the public domain of the social network. So, Hyves must create a framework of trust. Hyves does so by offering a package of options and services that limit the level of publicity of personal data. Only by allowing others (friends) specific rights, one may read personal data at different levels.A propos, the true power of a facilitating brand like Hyves does not necessarily lie in the relative trust of the site but more in the role of social brand. A social brand facilitates contacts between people in text, audio and video, both directly (synchronic, with one push of the button) or per tiding (posting, email, voice mail; a-synchronic). A brand is social if it promotes the dialogue, the participation and the relevance of usage for its users. Many of these facilitating social brands have a crossmedial strategy because they, for instance, incorporate chat, instant messaging and email, thus turning these media into social (sharing) media.Social media marketing, when done the right way, has an enormous impact on brand awareness and popularity. This impact can be brought about by inserting dialogue and participation promotional tools and by offering tailor made and therefore relevant propositions to the users. Not many brands make use of this relatively cheap method of marketing. If we analyze social media and compare the results with mainstream (traditional) media, we can convert the brands that make use of social media. With this type of research we can also conclude the effectiveness of social media. This effectiveness is called ‘share of voice’ (SOV).In SOV research we measure how many times brands are mentioned by users of social media and how they are mentioned (sentiment; negative, neutral, positive). Apart from this, we also measure the success rate with which the brands have incorporated different social media and vice versa (users making use of the facilitating social brand in social media.The parameters that are used in such research are dividend in different categories, i.e.:
·         The blogosphere with YouTube as latitude for online video
·         Popularity of social network site with MySpace and Bebo as latitudes for photo sites
·         Popularity of social bookmarking, user generated content and other content with Digg, Magnolia and Delicious as latitudes[1]Content is the key word. It is, when talking about social media as a communication tool for users, generated by those users (user generated content). On the other side, social media techniques (and technologies) become a communication tool from brands as well. So we can say that brands that provide content create social media. Some nice examples are Dell’s http://direct2dell.com/, the Disney-related blog http://blog.mousekingdom.com/ and Starbuck’s http://www.itsredagain.com/. Social media do have a considerable impact on brand awareness and popularity. For the brand user, the emphasis is not on overall attribution of brand value as such, but more on the product itself, the applicability and the buzz environment. Also, most social media are niche products, primarily adapted by early adapters. Traditional media focus mainly on the final financial effect (brand equity) of the investments in the brand. Social brands understand that by being a ‘friend’ who is talked about, the value not only increases in terms of economic capital but also in terms of social capital.

Kees

* Harry van Vliet (Harry’s site) has invented the term “Branding to Community”. He first used the term in the text for his public lecture, upcoming January 10, 2008.

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[1] This design of research is taken from Immediate Future’s Share of Voice ranking (2007)